January 30, 2018 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
Note C of Ada Lovelace - 2
We are continuing with the Note C of Ada
Lovelace in the treatise of Menabrea: “Sketch of the Analytical Engine” that
was translated into French by Ada Lovelace and published along with her notes
in 1842.
“This process is alluded to by M. Menabrea
(as we shall see later when we get back to the writing of Menabrea), and it is
a very important simplification.
It has been proposed to use it for the
reciprocal benefit of that art, which, while it has itself no apparent
connection with the domains of abstract science, has yet proved so valuable to
the latter, in suggesting the principles which, in their new and singular piece
of application, seem likely to place algebraical combinations not less
completely within the province of mechanism, than are all those varied
intricacies of which intersecting threads are susceptible.
By the introduction of the system of
backing into the Jacquard-loom itself, patterns which should possess symmetry,
and follow regular laws of any extent, might we woven by means of comparatively
few cards.
Those who understand the mechanism of this loom
will perceive that the above improvement is easily effected in practice, by
causing the prism over which the train of pattern-cards is suspended to revolve
backwards instead of forwards, at pleasure, under the requisite circumstances;
until, by so doing, any particular cards, or set of cards, that has done duty
once, and passed on in the ordinary regular succession, is brought back to the
position it occupied just before it was used the preceding time.
The prism then resumes its forward
rotation, and thus brings the card or set of cards in question into play a
second time.
This process may obviously be repeated any
number of times.”
Here Lovelace makes an attempt to describe
how the card system of the loom can be used in the engine to carry out repeated
mathematical operations.
Now we will go back to Menabrea where he
continues to describe in greater detail how the card system was proposed to be
used in the analytical engine.
“Arrangements analogous to those just
described have been introduced into the Analytical engine.
It contains two principal species of cards:
first, Operation cards, by means of which the parts of the machine are so
disposed as to execute any determinate series of operations, such as additions,
subtractions, multiplications, and divisions; secondly, cards of the Variables,
which indicate to the machine the columns on which the results are to be
represented.
The cards, when put in motion, successively
arrange the various portions of the machine according to the nature of the
processes that are to be effected, and the machine at the same time executes
these processes by means of the various pieces of mechanism of which it is
constituted.
In order more perfectly to conceive the
thing, let us select as an example the resolution of the two equations of the
first degree with two unknown quantities:-
mx + ny = d
m’x + n’y = d’
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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